


Footprints

by Buffintruder



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternative Universe - FBI, Cryptids, Gen, TAZ Amnesty AU, though no knowledge required
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23308795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buffintruder/pseuds/Buffintruder
Summary: Day 3 prompt: Person A and Person B go for a walk in fresh snow. Suddenly Person A realizes Person B is not leaving any footprints.,,,“I didn’t realize the US government paid people to huntcryptids,” Bartimaeus said as derisively as he could, ignoring the disappointment and fear rising up his throat. He had actually been enjoying this conversation with the latest guest at the Amnesty Lodge where Bartimaeus lived. Right up until he learned his profession.“Well, just in case they really do exist, it’s best to aim for diplomatic contact, don’t you think?” Ptolemy asked, so bright andhopefulthat it hurt. But Bartimaeus had long since learned not to trust humans, even if their smile was warm enough to almost make him want to believe in peace between their kinds....TAZ Amnesty au
Relationships: Bartimaeus & Ptolemy (Bartimaeus)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 21
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Prompt Set for 3/22/20





	Footprints

**Author's Note:**

> It’s not quite midnight yet in my timezone (still 10 minutes!), so this is still posted on day 3??  
> Thank you Nevi for the prompt about the footsteps in the snow!! I... don't know how much this ended up actually being hurt/comfort though, whoops  
> The basic idea for this comes from starlightwalking, who in a tumblr fic prompt game requested “a QP ship of your choice + taz amnesty AU (monster/human???)”

“I didn’t realize the US government paid people to hunt  _ cryptids _ ,” Bartimaeus said as derisively as he could, ignoring the disappointment and fear rising up his throat. He had actually been enjoying this conversation with the latest guest at the Amnesty Lodge where Bartimaeus lived. Right up until he learned his profession. 

“Well, just in case they really do exist, it’s best to aim for diplomatic contact, don’t you think?” Ptolemy asked, so bright and  _ hopeful _ that it hurt. But Bartimaeus had long since learned not to trust humans, even if their smile was warm enough to almost make him want to believe in peace between their kinds.

“Yeah,  _ if they really do exist _ .” He leaned his head against the back of the lounge’s couch, avoiding looking at Ptolemy directly.

“Oh, don’t give me that!” Ptolemy protested, though there was a lightness in his tone. “I can’t believe I came all the way out here to cryptid central, West Virginia, and I just happen to befriend the biggest skeptic out there.”

“Hey, I’m not the only one,” Bartimaeus said. Some painful emotion that was almost like humor twisted in his chest just at the sheer irony of it. “Plenty of us here hate the tourist industry for dragging all that ghost hunting trash and whatnot.”

“I feel like I should be offended,” Ptolemy said dryly.

“Eh, well you’re alright,” Bartimaeus said. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Most of the tourists were casual ones, happy to see Mandrake’s dumb museum or maybe go on a hike or two in search of Bigfoot. They weren’t a concern for the most part, and even those who came with cameras and youtube channels or podcasts or whatever were easy enough to avoid.

But Ptolemy worked for the government. He likely had training, though Bartimaeus wouldn’t have been able guess at what exactly that training that might entail. More than that, he seemed clever, his eyes always absorbing his surroundings with an intense curiosity. Worst of all, he was staying at the Amnesty Lodge, home to all the ghosts, vampires, fire demons, and other supernatural beings in the country. The residents were used to human visitors, rare as they might be, so they could keep up an act, but Bartimaeus had no idea how it would hold up to the scrutiny of someone like Ptolemy.

“Well, I’m _ so _ honored you think so,” Ptolemy said.

Bartimaeus snorted. “Don’t get a big head about it. I only said you’re alright.”

“Of course.” Ptolemy’s eyes were dancing, and Bartimaeus found himself fighting to keep from smiling.

“Morning, Bart,” Kitty said, coming down the stairs from her room. She looked at Ptolemy. “Agent.” Judging by her stiff expression, she already knew not to trust Ptolemy. Why had he been the last to know? Bartimaeus wondered, a little bitterly.

“Faquarl’s making French toast in the kitchen,” Bartimaeus called out. “But don’t bother him unless you want to be in tomorrow’s sausages.”

“Noted,” Kitty said. “Also, Mandrake and Asmira are coming over later.”

“Yeah?” It had to be a Pine Guard meeting. Because some monster popped into this dimension every two months, there had to be some sort of response team to keep it from harming people. Although Kitty, Asmira, and Mandrake hung out in their free time, they also held an official meeting at the Lodge with a few of the other residents when it approached the time for a new abomination to arrive. Bartimaeus had never really cared to participate in saving the world or whatever so he didn’t know exactly what those meetings entailed, but he had a feeling that they would not appreciate an FBI agent on the loose, potentially snooping around and eavesdropping.

“I just don’t want to be interrupted.” Kitty gave Ptolemy another cool look before heading through the door into the dining room.

“People here don’t really seem to like me much,” Ptolemy observed lightly.

If this was some sort of trick or test, Bartimaeus couldn’t tell. Kitty’s hostility toward him was far too obvious to be overlooked, but he had no idea if Ptolemy could guess why that might be the case.

“If it’s some criminal activity, Kitty does know that I’m not here for that, right?”

“You think Kitty’s a criminal?” Bartimaeus asked. It was true that she had been involved in some anarchist groups that pushed the boundaries of the law several times, but Bartimaeus did not think that would be a common assumption to make, just by looking at her.

Ptolemy shrugged. “Has that look of a misspent youth.”

“Yeah, that’s a fair assumption,” Bartimaeus said, hiding a grin. “Hey, you doing anything today? I was planning on a walk. I can show you some nice spots around the Monongahela park. Who knows. We might even run into Mothman.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ptolemy said, rolling his eyes. “You don’t need to tease me this much. Just let me grab my coat and boots.”

“Sure thing,” Bartimaeus said, remembering abruptly that yes, it was cold outside for humans and he needed to have some winterwear of his own to avoid suspicion. “Meet here in ten?”

“Yeah!” Ptolemy stood up, picking up his now-empty coffee cup as he headed out.

Bartimaeus went to his own room to grab his coat before heading to the dining room to grab a bagel. “I’m getting him out of the way of your meeting,” he informed Kitty. “You owe me one.”

She snorted. “Like you need some excuse from us to go cozy up to your FBI agent? Haven’t you spent most of last evening and this morning talking to him without anyone else pushing you to?”

“Well if I’m so unappreciated, next time I’ll just let Ptolemy snoop around while you try to hold your Pine Guard meeting.”

“What happened to your ‘all humans are trash’ bullshit?” Kitty asked, one eyebrow arched high.

“Hey, that’s what Faquarl says, not me,” Bartimaeus said. “I only say that you can’t trust humans not to put their self-interests above others, and that it isn’t worth getting too attached. I hang out with you, and you’re human.”

Kitty made a face. “Debatable.”

By all appearances, Kitty was human, but she could do a kind of magic that no human should have been able to do. “Fine, Asmira.”

“Again,” Kitty said. “She’s a Chosen One, not a regular human.”

“I hang out with Mandrake then!” Bartimaeus said, throwing his hands up into the air.

“Willingly?” Kitty asked.

“Fuck off,” Bartimaeus muttered just in time to see Ptolemy walking down the stairs into the lounge.

Kitty laughed loudly at him.

Ignoring her, he went out to greet Ptolemy. “Ready?”

“Yeah!” Ptolemy said, beaming up at Bartimaeus with a bright grin that made his heart clench. He was bundled up in several layers, including a hat and mittens and a bright red scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and lower face. In that moment, he looked so utterly human that it was ridiculous.

“Right then.” Bartimaeus headed outside into the cold winter air. The wind blew sharply through his layers, but as a fire demon who was only somewhat corporeal and had an ever-burning source of internal heat, that was hardly an issue for him. The trees and road were covered in crisp white snow, still fresh from last night. In the bright morning light, Bartimaeus could almost appreciate the beauty of this place, so different from his home world.

“My Egyptian genes really aren’t suited for this kind of temperature,” Ptolemy said ruefully. “But even though I thought the weather would be the one thing about this place I might hate, this is really amazing.”

It wasn’t fair that Ptolemy could think something so similar to him even though they were so fundamentally different, Bartimaeus thought. “Not quite as noteworthy once you’ve lived here for a few years,” he said as they headed out down one of the trails leading deeper into the woods. “But yeah.”

“Have you lived here a long time then?” Ptolemy asked. He was still looking around at all the trees towering above them, hints of dark evergreens contrasting sharply against the snow and light gray sky.

_ Almost a hundred years, _ Bartimaeus did not say. “Yeah, a fair while.”

“Why come here?” Ptolemy asked. “It’s not really a place people move to.”

And Bartimaeus wouldn’t have if he had the choice, but he had been exiled from his home, and this was where he had ended up after some centuries of drifting around the Earth. “What’s with all these questions? Are you suspecting me of something?”

Ptolemy laughed. “Sorry, I’ll stop. I was just trying to give you an opening to maybe explain why you weren’t leaving any footsteps.”

Bartimaeus froze. He looked behind them. There was one set of footprints stretching back to the Lodge. Next to it was nothing more than smooth snow, maybe a little icier than the rest, as if something had melted a bit of the snow only for it to freeze over again. There was no way he could explain this. He felt like he had been doused in a bucket of ice water, the flame that was his soul flickering. “Fuck.”

“I—sorry, I don’t mean to scare you,” Ptolemy said, the humor in his eyes turning into concern. “I’m not planning on hunting you down or posting pictures all over the internet or anything.”

Bartimaeus had been hurt by humans he trusted before, but there was a part of him that really wanted to believe Ptolemy, despite all the ways that this could go wrong. He swallowed. “How long have you known?”

“I suspected for a while,” Ptolemy said, his voice gentle. “I mean with all the stuff going around town and the attacks every two months. I do my research. I knew something was up in this town and that at least half of it happened around the Amnesty Lodge. Then there was the way that everybody at the Lodge looked at me when I told them who I was. But I didn’t  _ know _ until just now.”

“So what now?” Bartimaeus asked, wanting to hope but already preparing himself to be hurt. “You’ll tell your government, then what?”

“No,” Ptolemy said.

“They’ll come in with their—wait, what?” 

“I said no.” Ptolemy looked him in the eye. “I’m—I’m not exactly sure yet what I’ll do. But you seem like a good lot.”

“Have you  _ met _ Faquarl?” Bartimaeus was saying before he could really think about the words coming out of his mouth.

Ptolemy snorted. “Well, maybe not  _ good _ , but you aren’t harming people. You’re just living your lives in peace, and I don’t want to destroy that. So I don’t know what I’ll do, but I won’t draw attention to you unless, I dunno, the world’s in danger or something.”

There wasn’t a lot that Bartimaeus could do in response to that besides stare dumbly at Ptolemy.

“So, ah,” Ptolemy glanced down, awkwardly scratching his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you all.”

“You know,” Bartimaeus said, finally managing to find his voice. “There hasn’t been a human I’ve met in all my centuries on Earth that’s reacted this well to finding out what I am.” Technically there was Kitty and Asmira, but as Kitty pointed out, they weren’t exactly normal. And Mandrake hadn’t been  _ too _ bad, though Bartimaeus still didn’t trust him. It was his fault that there was a viral video of Bartimaeus in his fire demon form, after all.

“I’m sorry,” Ptolemy said, his eyes soft and earnest.

“Yeah, whatever.” Bartimaeus forcibly yanked himself out of his shock. “Well, now that you know, I guess I don’t have to be out here keeping you away from the secret meeting they’re having in there.”

“Secret meeting?”

“Yeah, to stop the next abomination. The monster thing that comes every two months.”

“Oh!” Ptolemy turned around to follow Bartimaeus back to the Lodge. “Can I listen in? I’d love to know more about what’s going on here and what you do to stop it! Also I’d like to be out of the cold.”

Bartimaeus looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. “If you don’t like the cold, why did you agree to come out here?”

“Well.” Ptolemy grinned a little sheepishly. “Mostly I just wanted to spend more time with you. I’m having a lot of fun talking to you.”

Bartimaeus stopped walking, staring at him for a full second before rolling his eyes. “Ugh, fine. Get over here.” He wrapped an arm around Ptolemy’s bony shoulders. This kid was utterly ridiculous, he thought.

“Oh, you’re warm!”

“Yeah, perks of being a fire demon.”

“Fire demon?” Ptolemy turned to him, his eyes shining. “What exactly is that? Can you tell me what you are and how you came to be? And what are you really doing here in West Virginia anyway?”

“I take back what I said about good reactions,” Bartimaeus grumbled. “This is worse.”

But it was a lie, and judging by the way Ptolemy laughed at him, they both knew it.


End file.
